Thursday, Aug 6, 2020
Logging flight time is a curious thing. When a pilot is starting out, every hour, to the tenth, is meticulously written in a crisp logbook. There are precise rules governing when and how you can log your flight time because many aspects of your legality as a pilot, not to mention your career as a professional aviator, can be affected by how much and what kind of flight time you have.
But all that plotting and planning will be sliced through with moments of clarity and for me it was on my DHC-8 where I had to file a captain's log into the airplane's plumbing. I was sitting there cramped in the tiny lav trying not to think of the thousands of people who have shared that exact toilet seat and pondering the mysteries of the universe and my place in it when I had that, "Ah ha!" moment. It dawned on me that while I was in the loo, I obviously wasn't at the controls of the airplane, the first officer was, BUT I was still logging the much-coveted PIC turbine time. PIC is "Pilot In command", AKA "Captain", and a turbine is just that, a turbine engine, a jet engine if you will, even though using the term "jet" feels a little like putting on a macho affectation while strutting around in a leather jacket, mirrored glasses and sporting a Tom Selleck mustache.
I'm sensitive because I can't grow a nice push-broom, luxurious mustache.
P.S. "Glass" is the type of instruments in the flight deck that the pilots are staring at to monitor and fly the airplane. The other type of instruments are the round, "steam-gauge" type, they look like the round dials on an old steam locomotive, but glass is a flat screen that displays the same information in a more condensed, digital format. Flying an airplane with "glass" can also be a sought-after experience for aspiring pilots. As with all things aviation, I could quickly go into the weeds to describe it but let's leave it at that.
But all that plotting and planning will be sliced through with moments of clarity and for me it was on my DHC-8 where I had to file a captain's log into the airplane's plumbing. I was sitting there cramped in the tiny lav trying not to think of the thousands of people who have shared that exact toilet seat and pondering the mysteries of the universe and my place in it when I had that, "Ah ha!" moment. It dawned on me that while I was in the loo, I obviously wasn't at the controls of the airplane, the first officer was, BUT I was still logging the much-coveted PIC turbine time. PIC is "Pilot In command", AKA "Captain", and a turbine is just that, a turbine engine, a jet engine if you will, even though using the term "jet" feels a little like putting on a macho affectation while strutting around in a leather jacket, mirrored glasses and sporting a Tom Selleck mustache.
I'm sensitive because I can't grow a nice push-broom, luxurious mustache.
P.S. "Glass" is the type of instruments in the flight deck that the pilots are staring at to monitor and fly the airplane. The other type of instruments are the round, "steam-gauge" type, they look like the round dials on an old steam locomotive, but glass is a flat screen that displays the same information in a more condensed, digital format. Flying an airplane with "glass" can also be a sought-after experience for aspiring pilots. As with all things aviation, I could quickly go into the weeds to describe it but let's leave it at that.